What Are the Uses of Cobalt?

Cobalt, chemical symbol Co, atomic number 27, melting point 1495℃, is a high melting point metal. Cobalt is ductile and ferromagnetic, and has a metal luster of silver gray.

Cobalt is a very scarce small metal resource and is known as “industrial monosodium glutamate” and “industrial tooth”. It is one of the important strategic resources. Cobalt resources are mostly associated with copper-cobalt ore, nickel-cobalt ore, arsenic-cobalt ore and pyrite deposits. Independent cobalt minerals are rare. There are few land reserves, seabed manganese tuberculosis is an important long-term resource of cobalt.

Currently, the traditional areas of consumption and application of cobalt are mainly battery materials, super heat-resistant alloys, tool steels, hard alloys, magnetic materials; cobalt in the form of compounds is mainly used as catalysts, desiccants, reagents, pigments and dyes.

Cobalt-60 is a widely used radioactive material. It is widely used in biochemistry for activation analysis; in electroplating, corrosion and catalysis for tracer research; in medical treatment for radiological examination and treatment. Due to its good high temperature resistance, corrosion resistance and magnetic performance, cobalt is widely used in aerospace, machinery manufacturing, electrical and electronic, chemical, ceramic and other industrial areas, and is one of the important raw materials for the production of high temperature alloys, hard alloys, ceramic pigments, catalysts and batteries.

Cobalt is one of the few metals that can keep its magnetism with only one magnetization. Under the effect of heat, the temperature of magnetic loss is called the curie point. The curie point of iron is 769℃ and nickel is 358℃ that of cobalt can reach 1150℃. The coercive force of magnetic steel containing 60% of cobalt is 2.5 times higher than that of conventional magnetic steel. In vibration, conventional magnetic steel loses nearly one-third of magnetism, while cobalt steel only loses 2%-3.5% of magnetism. Due to its superior magnetic properties, cobalt is used in large quantity for the production of high-performance magnetic materials.